It's a start

I thought I'd try using this blog feature to keep track in a central spot my attempts at tweaking my lifestyle to suit my needs as a diabetic.

So, for instance, I've been trying to start slowly with some additional exercise. I had a window of time with some flexibility available just before work in the mornings, so I thought I'd start there. The catch at the moment is a knee problem - some type of inflammation in my left knee that responds well to rest and badly to exercise. Yesterday, I managed a brief walk in the morning and limped through mowing half my yard in the evening. The knee felt fine after a night's sleep, but I could only walk about 6-10 minutes this morning. I'm walking in a local park and that seems to be working well in terms of timing, weather, and scenery. I do kind of miss using that time for a peaceful, slow start to my work day. I feel a little more rushed at work without it.

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Sorry I didn't see your comment earlier. I don't seem to get notified of these comments.

Anyway, the pain starts above and behind the knee to the medial side, then extends down towards the medial side of the knee. Then it starts hurting on the other side and works it's way down from the lateral side toward the ankle. By the time both sides are hurting about equally, the whole knee starts to feel unstable in a way I can't localize very well. During exercise it seems to hurt worse if I'm pushing something uphill (like a lawnmower). After exercise, it starts feeling better quickly, but seems to have lingering pain in a straight line across the back of the knee when bent that lasts the longest. Usually it feels perfectly fine after a day of rest (wild guess: <2000 steps = rest).

I did have a medial meniscus injury a few years ago, but that felt nothing like this. In that case it didn't hurt a great deal, just felt like the knee was trying to bend the wrong direction.

Here's my pet theory for the current problem: tight hamstrings (esp semimembraneosous) from doing too much sitting while taking calc last semester --> aggrevation of the semimembranous bursa +/- some tendonitis and irritation of the medial meniscus.

Compression and rest help a lot. Compression delays the onset of pain.